A few days after China lifted draconian COVID-19 restrictions, hearses carrying the deceased lined the road to a certified cremation in Beijing on Saturday.

This highly contagious Omicron strain has recently impacted catering and package delivery businesses in Beijing. With more employees and drivers testing positive for coronavirus, funeral businesses and crematoriums around the metropolis of 22 million are increasingly straining to keep up with demand.

Reuters reported that Beijing's Dongjiao crematorium on a Saturday afternoon saw 30 idling hearses in the crematorium's driveway.

An ambulance and a wagon, with a body covered in a sheet in the open trunk, were parked nearby; employees in hazmat gear removed the body and took it to a preparation room for the cremation. The smoke from three of the many chimneys constantly rose into the air.

A Reuters reporter noticed roughly 20 yellow body bags with human remains on the floor of a funeral home only a few meters from the incinerator. Whether or if the fatalities were caused by COVID-19 was not immediately clear per the report of the media outlet.

On condition of anonymity, the parking security operator and the proprietor of an urn store told Reuters that the death toll was higher than usual, and before the easing of most pandemic prohibitions on Dec. 7.

The city of Beijing is home to over a dozen funeral homes, and like other businesses in the city, they have been hit by personnel shortages due to illness.

A spike in fatalities in China COVID-19 cases may be contributing to the difficulty in meeting the increasing demand for cremation, however, this was not immediately apparent.

Changes in Monitoring China COVID-19 Cases

China has not reported any COVID fatalities since Dec. 7, when President Xi Jinping unexpectedly halted the fundamental pillars of his "zero-COVID" strategy after an enormous public outcry.

After spikes the week before, the overall number of new infections in the nation fell during the week ending December 11 due to significant adjustments in the country's COVID-19 monitoring and reporting systems.

The number of instances was more than the last COVID-19 wave in April before the data gathering method was modified. Temporary health centers and critical care facilities have been built around the nation as the burden on hospitals and medical institutions grows amind the reported China COVID-19 cases increase.

There have reportedly been an additional 230,000 hospital beds made available in Shanghai, according to BBC.

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Media outlets affiliated with the government and health authorities have abruptly shifted their stance on the severity of the infection.

According to CNN, top COVID-19 specialist Zhong Nanshan said Thursday that Omicron should be named "coronavirus cold" because of its comparable mortality rate to seasonal influenza and restricted respiratory infection.

There have been shortages of both OTC medications and antigen testing in Beijing as a result of people stocking up.

China COVID-19 Cases Expected To Jump to Almost a Million Next Year

New forecasts from the US-based Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) suggest that China's sudden discarding of rigorous COVID-19 regulations might lead to a surge of cases and nearly a million fatalities through 2023.

The organization assumes that the worst China COVID-19 cases will happen around April and that 322,000 people will die as a result. According to IHME Director Christopher Murray, by that time, around one-third of China's population would have been infected, per a CNBC story.

Since Covid limits were lifted in China, there have been no confirmed fatalities in the country. On December 3, the government announced the last fatality.

A total of 5,235 people have died as a result of the epidemic.

Other experts predict that 60% of China's population will be infected, peaking in January and affecting vulnerable groups including the elderly and individuals with comorbidities.

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